East Side House Settlement executive director Daniel Diaz and Helen Smith, executive director of The Winter Show, welcome the press corps. Center is the signed and dated bronze “Penelope Waiting” by Emile Antoine Bourdelle, 1912, offered by Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, LLC, New York City.
Review and Photos by Laura Beach
NEW YORK CITY — The Manhattan described by Russell Shorto in his bestselling 2004 book The Island at the Center of the World was a broadminded place thrumming with new ideas, one welcoming a diverse community of traders. For 11 days between January 23 and February 2, there was no better setting for experiencing a contemporary manifestation of that eclectic exchange than at the Winter Show, New York City’s own island at the center of the international art and antiques trade.
Benefitting East Side House Settlement in the Bronx, the 71st rendition of the fair returned to the Park Avenue Armory with 76 exhibitors and a decidedly transnational flair. The Winter Show is often described as encyclopedic. While each exhibit is a deep dive into a distinct collecting specialty, the overall impression this empress of American expositions imparts is of connectivity. The fair is a nexus of historical influences joining continent to continent and epoch to epoch.
Skillfully managed by executive director Helen Allen, the show got off to a festive start with its traditional Thursday evening preview party on January 23. Among 1,400 guests were former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, media mogul Martha Stewart and influencer Nicky Hilton Rothschild. A design luncheon followed on Friday, January 24. Hosted by fashion retailer Cara Cara, the program welcomed 150 allied design professionals. Subsequent events included a Young Collectors Night on Thursday, January 30, and a Connoisseurs Night on Friday, January 31.
“Attendance has been record, up every day by double digits,” Allen said at the start of the show’s second weekend. She surmised, “People want to see and learn about beautiful objects. Our social media has been fantastic. Young collectors and advisory members have been really engaged in helping to spread the word. We’ve been strategic in our advertising and marketing campaigns, both in terms of targeting where we advertise and doing more digital outreach. Our programs have been full. It all made a difference.”
Ralph Harvard’s design for Levy Galleries’ booth evoked the Chinese parlors of early Twentieth Century American collectors. Left and right are tall clocks by David Wood of Newburyport, Mass., and the Valentine Opp musical tall case clock by Joseph Ellicott of Buckingham, Penn. The latter sold. New York City.
The Winter Show is an informal classroom in design history. At Cove Landing, Biedermeier authority Angus Wilkie sold a German Neoclassical satin and burr birchwood fall-front secretary and matching armoire, shown with 25 detailed watercolors of interiors drawn from the Wittgenstein Album, a published trove documenting the family’s scattered European residences during the second quarter of the Nineteenth Century.
Ralph Harvard’s inspired Chinoiserie design for Levy Galleries invoked the great Chinese parlors, Winterthur’s foremost among them, created by early Twentieth Century antiquarians. Exhibitor Frank Levy used his set to advantage, unveiling a Rhode Island figured maple slant-front desk with original ball feet, most likely made by Abraham Tourtellot in 1743, and the 24-tune Valetine Opp musical tall-case clock. Both sold by fair’s end. The whereabouts of the clock — made by Joseph Ellicott of Buckingham, Penn., circa 1774 — was unknown when Gary Sullivan and Kate Van Winkle Keller published it in Musical Clocks of Early America.
Of still greater interest was a Boston mahogany slab table of circa 1755. Drawing from a 1993 essay for American Furniture by Alan Miller and Chipstone editor Martha Willoughby’s subsequent genealogical research, Levy confidently ascribed the robust carving on the unique piece, marked sold on opening night, to Bostonian John Welch. According to Levy, the table was likely made for Middlecott Cooke, who left it to his nephew Nathaniel Saltonstall, in whose family the table descended.
“This is a new discovery, unknown to the world until a week before show,” revealed Levy, who all but sold out his stand, writing slips for his Ames-Frothingham Boston Queen Anne high chest of drawers, a pair of New York Federal armchairs, a Boston Queen Anne wing chair, a Newport side chair possibly by John Goddard, a New York Hepplewhite mirror, a painting by Thomas Chambers, a China Trade view of Hong Kong, a Commeraw stoneware jar, a Wedgwood slave medallion and assorted pieces of Delft.
An anonymous still-life painting of fruit, cheese and wine, Olde Hope Antiques; Salem Federal server, Levy Galleries; pair of silver-mounted flint-lock pistols, by Jacob Sees, Elizabeth Township, Penn., Kelly Kinzle Antiques; and a painted Native American basket, David Schorsch and Eileen Smiles. “Focus: Americana.”
Levy also joined six other Americana dealers in the show’s “Focus: Americana” exhibition booth, curated by Alexandra Kirtley, who selected objects and worked with designer Erick Espinoza to install them. Among the highlights were a monumental primitive still-life painting of fruit, cheese and wine and a double portrait by Jacob Maentel, both featured by Olde Hope Antiques; a pair of silver-mounted flint-lock pistols by Jacob Sees of Elizabeth Township, Penn., offered by Kelly Kinzle; and, from Liverant Antiques, a diminutive, serpentine-front Boston chest of drawers once owned by Revolutionary War officer Major General Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, Mass.
“Focus: Americana” sales included a pair of signed Simeon Deming Federal mirrors, a theorem and a Native basket, all featured by David Schorsch and Eileen Smiles; a gilded and painted metal Great Seal of the United States, circa 1875, presented by Allan Katz; and a Prior-Hamblin School portrait by Willam Kennedy and a large tin bonnet, offered by Olde Hope Antiques. Early in the preview, Elle Shushan put a miniature Virginia landscape view by David Boudon on hold.
“There is still great appreciation for Americana,” said Litchfield, Conn., dealer Jeffrey Tillou, who wrote up carved figures, weathervanes and paintings by William G. Van Zandt, Emma Brock and Ralph Cahoon, Jr.
American paintings experts Debra Force and Thomas Colville were off to strong starts, Force acknowledging midweek, “We thus far sold our Burbank and Wiggins paintings and have interest from collectors and museums for several things including our two works by Peterson, our Bearden, Diederich lamp, Hartley, Marin seascape, our two Giffords and our Edward Beyer of Cincinnati townscape.”
Four moody seascapes at Thomas Colville Fine Art, Guilford, Conn. Top, “Alaska Impression #37” by Rockwell Kent, 1919; bottom, “By the Sea” by Charles Webster Hawthorne, circa 1915; right, “The Brooklyn Bridge, Evening” by John Whorf, 1952.
New exhibitor Alexandre Gallery was awash in Marsden Hartleys. Dolan/Maxwell tempted with paintings by Elizabeth Catlett, Lou Mailou Jones, Gabor Peterdi and Stanley William Hayter. Prominent at the show’s entrance, Jonathan Boos contrasted works by Alice Neel, Albert Bloch and Horace Pippin with a sinister Salvador Dalí.
Hirschl & Adler operated in split screen, devoting half its stand to early and the other half to late Nineteenth Century American fine and decorative arts. Carrying the firm into the Twentieth Century was the 1937 “Natokiochkome (Howling Twice),” now sold. The work hailed from the gallery’s current exhibition of portraiture by Winold Reiss (1886-1953), whose profile increased with the Met’s recent Harlem Renaissance show, said managing director Liz Feld.
“Our circa 1900-03 Grape Arbor window came from a woman who found it in Pennsylvania in the 1970s and brought it to Lillian Nassau to have it authenticated. The owner displayed the window in two houses before a move forced her to crate it. It had been stored for 30 years when I got it, which partly explains its wonderful condition,” said Tiffany specialist Arlie Sulka, owner of Lillian Nassau LLC.
“We got a quote for shipping our big Coade urns to Australia,” said garden antiques authority Barbara Israel, whose most remarkable offering was a newly discovered flower box designed by Paul Manship for architect William Welles Bosworth on behalf of John D. Rockefeller. Cast by the Atlantic Terra-Cotta Company of Perth Amboy, N.J., the box dated to circa 1916.
Guests admire a circa 1916 Atlantic Terra Cotta Company flower box designed by Paul Manship for architect William Welles Bosworth on behalf of John D. Rockefeller. Flanking, a pair of Coade of Lambeth stoneware urns; rear, the stoneware figure of Erin, produced circa 1860 by John Marriott Blashfield after a model by John Bell. Barbara Israel Garden Antiques, New York City and Katonah, N.Y.
A mid Nineteenth Century American blown and molded glass flask in the coveted Summer Tree pattern was awarded a “Best of Show” prize at Glass Past, where exhibitors Jim Oliveira and Sara Blumberg organized their offerings chronologically, starting with early American glass and proceeding to Modern Italian pieces of the 1920s-70s. Oliveira’s favorite was a green bubble vase by Napoleone Martinuzzi for Venini. “It’s iconic, a real standout,” the dealer said.
“My grandmother was born on February 12, so my grandfather always gave her antique valentines. She eventually had one of the largest collections anywhere,” Robert Newman of The Old Print Shop said, gesturing to handful of examples. Mary Cassatt aquatints priced in the mid-six-figures hung nearby in contrast. Among the New York dealer’s early sales were seven primitive marionettes of about 1885.
“There’s been good energy at the show this year,” reported London dealer Robert Young, who sold over 30 examples of English and Continental vernacular furniture and folk art, among them a circa 1860 German ark toy and a large model of what is thought to be the passenger ship Queen Mary, also a “Best of Show” object.
Sporting arts specialist Rountree Tryon marked up three horse pictures by English animal portraitist Florence Mabel Hollams. Another UK dealer, Ronald Phillips, parted with a pair of George II giltwood mirrors once owned by British mega-collector Percival D. Griffiths and subsequently by designer Syrie Maugham.
Objects with royal associations in the show included Sir Alfred James Munnings’s 1918 canvas “The Saw Mill in the Forest of Dreux,” presented by the Canadian Forestry Corps to Princess Anne, Countess of Athlone and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Rountree Tryon Galleries, Petworth and London, UK.
As museums reinterpret European settlement of the Americas, The Winter Show is catering to their revised missions. Robert Simon was among the first to regularly bring Colonial Latin American art to the show. Along with New World pieces he this year offered such Italian treasures as a small Bernini bronze, marked sold, and a glimmering Madonna and Child painting on panel by Niccolo di Segna, the latter Simon’s homage to the Met’s recent blockbuster display, “Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350.”
Others trumpeting transatlantic cultural exchange were new exhibitor São Roque, whose abundant selection of Seventeenth Century Portuguese blue-and-white faience enhanced the fair, and Eguiguren of Argentina and Uruguay, whose Eighteenth Century Mexican portrait of Doña Josefa Yzquierdo Yañes offered an instructive comparison with far plainer American folk portraiture of a slightly later period. Shrubsole reached into the past with a Spanish Colonial silver-gilt two-handled cup from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha shipwreck, Bogotá, Colombia, circa 1620.
“We had a good run at this year’s Winter Show, with several noteworthy acquisitions. A Boston-area collector was quick to secure the Seventeenth Century flower vase marked for Adrianus Kocx, while a local collector acquired our trompe l’oeil birdcage plaque — an object that never fails to capture the imagination. Additionally, the early jug illustrated in the fair’s handbook has found a new home with a private collector in Canada,” reported Delft specialist Robert Aronson of Amsterdam.
Aronson of Amsterdam counted this Delft trompe l’oeil birdcage, circa 1760, among its sales.
Also from Amsterdam, new exhibitor Zebregs&Röell coupled an initialed and dated 1633 chest once belonging to New Netherlands resident Anneken Jans with a pair of Spanish-colonial Viceregal Peruvian mother-of-pearl inlaid bureau-cabinets. An American museum acquired from the dealer four 1769 pastel on paper portraits by Joseph Savart depicting Guadeloupe women.
New York dealer Lawrence Steigrad unveiled “The Goldweigher,” an oil on canvas portrait by Seventeenth Century School of Rembrandt artist Karel Van Der Pluym. The Old Masters pictures specialist recently reacquired the canvas from the client to whom he sold it at TEFAF Maastricht.
Japanese arts authority Erik Thomsen noted, “We’ve been emphasizing Nihonga paintings from the turn of the Twentieth Century. There has been a tremendous rise of interest in them among museums and collectors.” Painted on gold-washed silk by Okura Uson, two radiant six-panel screens, “Summer Flowers” and “Snowy Bamboo,” spanned the width of the New York dealer’s stand in support of his point.
No one has done more to foster appreciation for contemporary Japanese ceramics than Winter Show veteran Joan Mirviss, whose curated installation “FORM not FUNCTION: Japanese Ceramic Sculpture” was named the best booth of the year. Midway through the fair, the New York dealer reported record sales, both by dollar and by volume. In addition to selling more than two-thirds of her contemporary pieces by the close of the first weekend, the dealer found buyers for a Hiroshige woodblock print and two oil paintings by Suda Kokuta. Mirviss noted, “About half of our sales were made to existing collectors, many locally based, and nearly the same to new clients, some who traveled to New York especially for the fair, and others who had never before purchased Japanese art or ceramics.”
Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd., presented the curated exhibition “FORM not FUNCTION: Japanese Ceramic Sculpture.” A catalogue is available on the dealer’s website. New York City.
“This is one of only two Josef Hoffmann for Wiener Werkstätte mantel clocks of 1903 executed. I was lucky to get an export permit for it,” confided Viennese dealer Nikolaus Kolhammer, who would not be unhappy to see the timepiece reside in New York’s Neue Galerie. His display dazzled with Dagobert Peche mirrors and a Koloman Moser chandelier and pendant lamps. Sales included a pair of Secessionist repousse-brass relief panels by Georg Klimt, circa 1902.
“The response to our curated exhibition of works by French makers from the 1900s to today has been truly rewarding,” noted Benoist Drut of Maison Gerard. The New York dealer’s sales to interior designers included a contemporary wall sculpture by Guy Bareff to Peter Marino and a valet chair by Aline Hazarian to Alex Papachristidis.
Sales at Milord Antiques ranged from a Maxime Old oak drinks cabinet of 1947 and a FontanaArte illuminated mirror of circa 1958 to a Philip and Kelvin Laverne table from the 1970s.
Additional sales highlights included works by Kandinsky, Miró and Braque at Galerie Gmurzynska; a plaster bas-relief maquette by Pierre Jean David d’Angers at Daniel Crouch Rare Books; and, to a museum, an early hand-drawn map and autograph document signed by George Washington, 1751, at Peter Harrington.
London dealer Robert Young points out details on a circa 1860 German ark toy, among his many sales. Partially visible, right, are eight working pigeon decoys, English, circa 1900. Robert Young Antiques.
Summing up the season, Robert Young observed, “The management of the show have excelled in moving it forward to embrace today’s taste. We think the show is really on an upward trajectory. It’s been a lively start to the year.”
Allen and team are already working on next year’s presentation, which will help kick off America 250 celebrations around the country. Appropriately, “Focus: Americana” will return for a third season. Show dates are January 23-February 1, with the opening night party set for January 22, 2026.
For more, visit www.wintershow.org.
